How to Boost Your Conversion Rates With an Irresistible Lead Magnet

So your website is attracting regular visitors. But how many of them are buying your stuff?

Dave Chaffey at Smart Insights recently posted a study of conversion rates that found that conversion rates across different industries ranged from 2% to 10%. That means that 90% or more of your website traffic is not ready to do business with you.

The fact is, the majority of your visitors are in browsing mode. They’re seeing what you offer and sizing you up against your competitors. The more complex or expensive your products are, the longer your visitors need before they’re ready to commit. You can’t be too pushy. You might end up scaring them off.

So what should you do?

What you can do is to try to capture their email address. This will allow you to keep in touch with them. By sending them regular updates, articles, and useful resources, you can build a relationship with your visitors over a period of time. As you establish trust and credibility with your visitors, they will reach a point where they’re ready to buy from you.

How do you persuade your visitors to give you their email address?

To get your visitors to give you their email address, you need to offer them something in return.

The lead magnet is a free incentive that you offer your visitors in exchange for their information. This means their email and may also include their phone number, address and any other relevant information.

How to design an irresistible lead magnet

For your lead magnet to be effective, it must be enticing to your visitors. It needs to offer them a benefit that they cannot pass up. To design an irresistible lead magnet you need to do the following:

Be specific. Don’t make vague promises like “How to boost productivity”. You need to be more specific to make people sit up and notice. Now how about “7 Ways to Boost Productivity by up to 50% with No Upfront Costs?” This identifies a defined, quantifiable benefit and is much more credible.

Be exciting. To capture your visitors’ attention, you need to excite them. What’s the one thing you can give away for free that would be ridiculously useful to your visitors?

Be targeted. Show you understand the profile of your niche of clients. Make the lead magnet targeted to their unique needs. You’ll turn away those who you cannot serve, but you’ll attract those who you can.

Add value. Offer something genuinely useful to our visitors. Solve one of their biggest problems, or provide a resource that can help them accomplish their goals

Be relevant. Your offering should be relevant to your particular business. Leverage your industry expertise and experience to position your business as an authority in your niche.

Avoid hype. Don’t make promises that you can’t fulfill. To turn visitors into clients, you need to win their trust. Visitors will not risk letting you fool them a second time.

Examples of lead magnets

Your lead magnet can take many forms. Here’s a list of lead magnet ideas that have been proven to work.

Video course. Your video can be a narrated Powerpoint presentation, an interview, or a webinar. You can deliver the video as a whole, or you can break it up into segments and deliver each part sequentially via email.

E-book course. This is a tried and tested lead magnet strategy. It’s been used to the point of cliche, because it works. Make sure you offer something more valuable than a blog post. Offer a solution to a common problem in your niche and show off your expertise. Again you can break the e-book up into sequential emails.

Industry reports. If you have data relevant to your industry that would be valuable to your visitors, you can compile it into a report and give your insights and analysis. This report will position you as an authority in your industry.

Free samples. You can offer your visitors an opportunity to sample your products or services for free. If you’re selling a physical product you might consider shipping a small quantity for people to try in exchange for their email and mailing address. If you’re offering consulting services, you could offer a free initial telephone consultation.

Tool. Create an online tool that solves a problem in your niche. The tool could be a calculator, a planner or a free report generator.

Free test. People love to take tests to evaluate their skills or knowledge. Prepare a list of questions relevant to your industry for your visitors. Ask them to give you their email address in exchange for their results

Writing your lead magnet copy

Now you have your lead magnet you need to draw your visitors’ attention to it. You need to some copy to attract the eyes of your visitors and entice them to sign up. Effective copy is all about using persuasive words.

Copywriter Demain Farnworth revealed the top five most persuasive words in a recent podcast. The five magic words are: you, free, because, instantly and new.

A good example of effective copy using persuasive words would be: “Instantly download our new industry report by signing up for our free email list”.

You need a button for your visitors to click on after they’ve entered their details. Now you could label the button “Subscribe”. However, top copywriters know that including an action word for your button is going to give an extra boost to your conversion rates. So, instead of “Subscribe”, try “Download the Report”.

Where to place your lead magnet copy

Your lead magnet copy should be placed prominently on your website so that your visitors can see it as they browse your content. Content marketer Corey Ferreira revealed the 7 best locations for opt-in forms in a recent post. For lead magnet copy, the following locations would be ideal:

A feature box at the top of your blog page

A sidebar

After each blog post

You should experiment with the various options and split test to see which location works best for you.

Don’t leave money on the table

If you’re not currently using a lead magnet for your website, you’re leaving money on the table. Lead magnets allow you to capture passing website traffic and turn them into customers. They will help you expand your client base and drive the growth of your business.

I create strategic content with authority and personality. My work has been featured in Search Engine Journal, Problogger, and Jeff Bullas. Businesses hire me to grow their traffic and boost conversions. If you’d like to know how I can help you, click here.

Comments

Your writing is a joy to read, as always, Clement. You also have really interesting links to other articles, so if I read yours, then I have to read the linked articles as well. Thank you for all you do.

I think lead magnets can be an incredibly valuable resource, if they’re done right. I even feel like they can create an obligation of sorts in the user (if you’ve created something REALLY valuable for them). If they feel like you’ve given them something amazing, they might just feel obligated to read more of your marketing, get on your email list, or even buy a product.

You’ll certainly be top of mind when they finally get to a purchasing stage.

I like the idea of creating video seminars too — it gives customers the chance to find out what you’re really like, to get to know you and kind of feel you out before they actually make a purchase.